Plan To Ease Schools Crush Ok'd

TAVARES -- A combination of classroom additions, portable classrooms and rezoning looks like the way to ease overcrowding next year in four Clermont-area schools, the Lake County School Board agreed Wednesday.

Solutions for the tight fit at Lost Lake and Pine Ridge elementary schools soon will be set in stone. The board gave the go-ahead to fast-track a 12-classroom wing at each school, to be finished by late fall.

The additions will push permanent enrollment at each school to 1,200 students. Officials agree that number is far too high and may strain the lunchroom, library and other facilities, but they say they have no other quick fix.

While crowding at the two elementary schools will be at least temporarily resolved, the board is hesitant to take what might be unpopular moves to reduce enrollment at East Ridge High School and Windy Hill Middle School. The board stated its plan but wants to gauge public reaction before making a decision.

"We are still trying to find the best way to proceed," School Board Chairman Kyleen Fischer said.

The plan for East Ridge calls for shifting students to South Lake High School beginning in the fall. East Ridge, which opened only last school year, was designed for 1,850 students, but enrollment already has hit 2,300.

All eighth-graders at Clermont Middle School would attend South Lake High next school year under the plan. That would shift about 225 students to South Lake who otherwise would attend East Ridge. Clermont Middle students now are split between the two high schools when they move on to ninth grade.

"This will work for us next year if those 225 students move," said Aurelia Cole, principal of East Ridge.

Cole said that because of the continuing influx of students, the switch probably would not decrease enrollment, but would at least keep the numbers from climbing much higher.

Jim Polk, assistant superintendent for curriculum and instruction, said the alternative is to put rows of portable classrooms at East Ridge.

That is exactly the solution planned for Windy Hill Middle. Officials are leaning toward installing eight more portables at the school next year.

The alternative is to shift hundreds of students to Gray Middle in Clermont. That would put students on the move again in a couple of years, when a new middle school opens.

A main complaint of Clermont-area parents is that their kids constantly are shifted from school to school. The area has grown so rapidly that changes in attendance zones occur almost every year, as new schools are built and enrollments at schools are balanced.

The School Board on Wednesday considered pushing to have the new middle school done for fall 2005.

But Bill Humbaugh, assistant superintendent for school-district facilities, said the district has had no luck in coming up with sites for planned new elementary, middle and high schools in the Clermont area. Fall of 2006 is the earliest to expect the middle school, he said.